In the prior art, a variety of vehicle door opening-closing device have been proposed. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2007-182748 describes a vehicle door opening-closing device that is applied to a vehicle door that slides to open and close a door opening formed in a vehicle body.
The vehicle door opening-closing device includes a door handle that is pivotally supported by a vehicle door, an opening-closing operation detector that detects an operation of the opening or closing operation of the door handle, a door drive mechanism that drives and opens or closes the vehicle door, and a controller that actuates the door drive mechanism based on a detection signal received from the opening-closing operation detector. For example, when a user pushes the door handle toward an inner side of the vehicle when the vehicle door is fully closed, the opening-closing operation detector detects a door handle opening operation and outputs a detection signal to the controller. When receiving the detection signal, the controller drives the door drive mechanism to move the vehicle door in an opening direction. Thus, the vehicle door automatically moves in the opening direction from the fully closed state when the user pushes the door handle toward the inner side of the vehicle.